The CPU, or Central Processing Unit, is the brain of your computer. It’s as important to your machine as a human brain is to a person! The CPU takes data and instructions from programs that are running and processes them.
Table of Contents
What is a CPU?
When a person opens their eyes, they can see what is in front of them. It’s the same with CPUs! When you open an app on your computer or phone, that data and instruction will be processed by the CPU.
The brain of every device – no matter how big or small – interprets data and directives from programs running on it. This process is called ‘processing’. A CPU (Central Processing Unit) does this for any device which has one inside! Think about how often we use our phones to do anything these days; everything from checking email to going shopping online. Without a powerful processor like the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon Processor 8xx Series Mobile Platforms, these activities would take much longer than normal to complete.
The ability of the processor to process data determines how fast it can do so, and also what tasks it is best suited for! The CPU uses a program called an ‘Operating System’ or OS that tells it when to start processing which programs. In this way, CPUs are like our brains – they only know what we tell them to do by running different software on them. These instructions come in two forms: one set of these instructions comes from your device’s own operating system; another set is provided by whichever app you’re using at any given moment (whether that’s editing a photo album with Adobe Photoshop or playing Angry Birds).
Types of CPUs
Until 2021, there are 6 types of CPUs.
- Single-core CPU – A single-core CPU is the simplest type of processor and can only process one thing at a time. Single-Core CPUs are used for tasks that do not require multitasking, such as playing music or browsing websites (single tasking). Single Core processors have been around since 1971 when they were developed by Intel to power their first microprocessor.
- Dual-core CPU – A dual-core CPU is a single processor with two “cores” or processing units on it.
- Quad-core CPU – A quad-core CPU has four processing units on this processor.
- Hexa Core processors – There are six processing units.
- Octa-core processors – There are eight processing units.
- Deca-core processor – There are ten processing units.
